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Performing in the round, Spacey had the audience hanging on his every word as he moved between engaging chats and witty anecdotes, to emotional confessions and rousing speeches.

The 54-year-old star’s commanding performance earned him a standing ovation last night.

Spacey has played the character before, on stage in Inherit The Wind and 22 years ago in the PBS film Darrow.

Praise: Audience members took to Twitter to praise the star for how he handled the interruption

Support: Nick Bailey said Spacey was a 'Legend' for the way he dealt with the phone ringing

Magnificent: Spacey did not even break character as he paused to tick off the audience member

He said: 'Clarence Darrow was a unique and courageous man. Several of my favourite actors have played Darrow... Henry Fonda, Orson Welles and Spencer Tracy.

'Wanting to get up on my beloved Old Vic stage in our 10th anniversary season was also important to me. And taking on a play that I feel very close to seems right.

'Finally, throw in that I’ve never done a one-man play, or performed in the round before, and this production offered me two firsts. Plus, you know I love a challenge.'

The production is directed by Thea Sharrock, who made the Christmas special of Call The Midwife.

Spacey, who has appeared in several Old Vic productions during his decade’s tenure, including Richard III and The Philadelphia Story, is stepping down as artistic director at the end of this year. He will be replaced by Matthew Warchus.

Farewell performance: Kevin Spacey stars in legal drama Clarence Darrow to celebrate the end of his 10 years as artistic director of The Old Vic theatre in London (pictured)

The show can't go on! How actors have taken a stand against noise

Kevin Spacey’s reprimanding of an audience member who left their phone switched on is not the first time a famous actor has taken a stand against noise interrupting their performance.

Audience members are warned to turn their mobile phones off as a matter of course prior to the vast majority of theatre shows - but a ringing phone is not always to blame.

Spacey himself attacked audience members
at the Old Vic in 2004 for letting their phones go off inside the
theatre and for noisily opening sweet wrappers.

Royal row: Last May, Dame Helen Mirren shouted at a group of drummers to be quiet during her performance as the Queen in The Audience at the Gielgud Theatre

Ticking off: Dame Helen was still in her Queen costume when she told the drummers to be quiet

And last May, Dame Helen Mirren shouted at a group of drummers to be quiet while still dressed in her stage costume as Queen Elizabeth II.

The troupe of dancing drummers, who were promoting a festival for gay and transgender people, were stunned when Dame Helen told them in colourful language to be quiet.

She went outside the West End’s Gielgud Theatre - where she was starring as the Queen in The Audience, for which she has won an Olivier Award - in the interval to confront the group.

The next day she arrived at the theatre wearing a T-shirt supporting them, and admitted using “a few thespian words” .

She said the group were “very sweet and stopped the minute they knew I wasn’t just a batty old woman haranguing them on the streets of Soho”.

Back in 2009, the showstopping performance by Hollywood stars Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman as their Broadway show was interrupted by a mobile phone call became an internet hit.

Footage of the stars as they
unflappably dealt with the continued ringing during a New York
performance of A Steady Rain was watched a third of a million times in a
matter of hours.

The
footage - which itself seems to have been taken with a mobile - was
posted on YouTube, showing how they halt their usual dialogue until the
ringing stops.

Interrupted: In 2009 the performance by Hollywood stars Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman in A Steady Rain was interrupted by a mobile phone call

James Bond star Craig and Wolverine actor Jackman took the ringing phone in their stride as it interrupted a preview performance of the play.

Jackman told the owner of the ringing phone “you want to get that?”, as the audience laughed and cheered.

As the ringing continued, Jackman paced the stage and pleaded: “Come on, just turn it off.”

Craig then joined in with the ad libs at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, asking: “Can you get that, whoever that is, can you get it? We can wait, just get the phone.”

“Don’t be embarrassed, just grab the phone,” Jackman urged. The pair had to wait about a minute for the ringing to stop.

Richard Griffiths, who died in March last year, was famously short tempered when it came to noisy audience members.

In November 2005 he halted a performance of Heroes at London's Wyndham's theatre and threw out one theatre-goer when her mobile phone went off for the third time, after asking 'Is that it or will it be ringing some more?

'Could the person whose mobile phone
it is please leave? The 750 people here would would be fully justified
in suing you for ruining their afternoon.'

He was given a standing ovation by the audience.

Griffiths,
whose film roles included Withnail & I and Harry Potter, also
reprimaded audience members whose phones went off during performances of
The History Boys at the National in London in 2004, and in New York in
2006.

Action: Richard Griffiths (left), pictured with Heroes co-stars John Hurt and Ken Stott, stopped the show to throw out an audience member when her phone went off for a third time

He told the Broadway audience: 'You should be ashamed of yourselves.

'I am not going to compete with these electronic devices. You were told to turn them off by the stage manager, you were told it was against the law.'

He was said to have added: 'We're going to start this scene again. If we hear one more phone go off, we'll quit this afternoon's performance. You have been warned.'

In 2012, famed director Sir Peter Hall apologised to Downton Abbey actress Laura Carmichael after he 'unintentionally disrupted' the star during her West End stage debut.

The actress, who shot to fame as Downton’s Lady Edith Crawley, continued her closing monologue in the Chekhov classic Uncle Vanya, despite a commotion caused by Sir Peter.

The theatre veteran, then 81, denied reports that he heckled the actress during the performance on Friday and said he was 'disorientated' after falling asleep.

He said in a statement: 'I am mortified that I unintentionally disrupted the final scene of Uncle Vanya and I have sent a personal note to Laura Carmichael offering my apologies.

'I enjoyed the evening, and her performance, immensely, and I cannot stress too strongly that my remarks were in no way directed at her or the production.'

Sir Peter, who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company and directed the National Theatre, said: 'Being rather aged, I dropped off for a moment and on being woken by my wife I was briefly disorientated.

'Remarks made in the resulting confusion were not in any way related to Uncle Vanya which I think is a very fine production with a marvellous company of actors.'